presidential race

Strange new respect breaks out all over for Michele Bachmann.

Following on Matt Continetti’s cover story this week, “Queen of the Tea Party,” a host of writers seem to have awakened to the charms, and the potential, of Michele Bachmann. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza insightfully describes her “unique appeal” in an account of a town hall meeting in Rock Hill, South Carolina, earlier this week (it’s worth watching the whole event, by the way). John Cassidy writes a snarky—but, despite himself, admiring—account of Bachmann in the New Yorker. And National Review puts Bachmann on its cover as “Daughter of Liberty” in its just-off-the presses July 18 issue (Robert Costa’s profile is not yet on line).

So Bachmann’s taking off. Can she sustain it? Who knows? That’s what campaigns are for. But a sign of how seriously she’s being taken is that aides on the Hill are now beginning—half-jokingly—to speculate about her vice presidential pick. I still think Ryan-Rubio is the most likely 2012 GOP ticket. But if not that, how about Bachmann-Lieberman?

The GOP presidential race begins to get interesting.

Mitch Daniels is likely, I’m told, to announce his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination in the next couple of weeks. Michele Bachmann will, I think, enter the race in June. And it now looks as if Mike Huckabee is also going to run.

Over at the Washington Post for his guestblogging stint this week, THE WEEKLY STANDARD's Matt Continetti called up GOP campaign operative Mike Murphy and asked him to handicap the presidential candidates. The results are entertaining to say the least:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who signed sweeping curbs on public unions into law this month, may be emerging as a potential 2012 Republican presidential contender, according to a poll issued on Thursday.

The phone survey by Public Policy Polling of 642 registered voters across the country on March 10-13 found that Walker's favorability among Republican voters was 55 percent positive and 11 percent negative, a spread of 44 points.

What the Pawlenty-Barbour dust-up means

The skirmish between Haley Barbour and Tim Pawlenty on defense spending and Afghanistan is more enlightening for what it says about GOP 2012 politics than for what it says about the substance of foreign and defense policy.

As I write, the 2012 Tea Party Presidential Poll has tallied 1,876,814 responses, and here are the top-15 potential candidates on the leaderboard to date — along with the percentage of the time that they have won their respective head-to-head matchups in the poll: